


I’m not asking you to stay

by aboringmess



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Canon, F/M, One Shot, Romance, beggining of releantionship, rambles
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-28
Updated: 2020-04-28
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:53:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,072
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23894122
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/aboringmess/pseuds/aboringmess
Summary: Lily remembers how her parents used to fight and how she begged her father to stay as her mother looked weak. She is not her mother. She will not ask him to stay, even if she is terrified of the thought of him leaving her.
Relationships: James Potter & Lily Evans Potter, James Potter/Lily Evans Potter
Comments: 2
Kudos: 12





	I’m not asking you to stay

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first fic! I publisged on tumblr first. Hope you enjoy!

She remembers the screams that made her wake up in the middle of the night, startled. She remembers her mother loud cry. Her father screamed that he was leaving the house to “think”. At the time he said that, she was already hiding in the bedroom, afraid, but when her father said that he was leaving, she started running to where they were and begged and begged for him to stay. Her father looked at her and didn’t say a word. He just stood there. Her mother, tears still in her eyes, asked Lily to go back to her room, saying it would all be fine. It seemed like a lie, even then, even for a child.  
You see, for young Lily love was supposed to be a fairy-tale and in those she had never seen or read about explosive fights, it was all romance and embraces and destiny. She believes it was in that night that she stopped believing in a love like that.  
  
Because she remembers feeling heartbroken as she heard her own father speaking so many horrible things to her mother. The days passed and she didn’t hear any apologies, but she could see the sadness in her mother’s eyes and the way she looked down when her father was around. She does not, however, remember when her mother started to look normal again, though it happened, maybe just a few days after. She just remembers the pain. As clear as day.  
  
Not long after that, she went to Hogwarts, but that fight and the fragile look on her mother’s face would stay with her. At the time, Tuney said she didn’t want to talk about it and laughed when Lily asked if their parents were not in love with each other anymore. “You are just too young to understand”, she said. Sev just said that she was lucky if that fight was all there was, all she witnessed.  
That night passes through Lily’s mind as she is currently screaming at her boyfriend, claiming he has no idea what she is going through and hearing that if it is so it is because she seems to want it that way.  
  
“You keep isolating yourself from everyone”, he claims and she hates to hear it, hates to think that he may be right and so she defends herself, tries to stop the conversation.  
“How classic Potter, how very narcissistic of you to think you are everyone. The problem is only with you it seems.”  
She regrets the words as soon as she says it, but they are already out. She sees hurt in James eyes and she hates herself. She could beg him to stay, like she did with her father, apologize and try to fix this. But the dark circles under her mother’s eyes in the days after the fight and the way she seemed to look down when her father entered the room hold a stronger power. She realizes now that at the time she thought her mother looked weak. Come to think of it, she never heard her mother defending herself. And Lily was not defenceless, she needed, especially now, to be strong and brave. A true Gryffindor, she muses to herself with sarcasm.  
  
“Maybe you should just go” is what she says instead.  
  
“Do you want me to?”  
  
James is very keen on asking Lily a lot of things. Especially when they were trying to be friends, it was like he wanted to know all there was to Lily. Which, frankly, was scary, because there was not a lot to know about her. She was boring. He would see right through her facade and would eventually get bored. But here they are. In a relationship, at least for the time being. At least before he threaten to leave. And she lets him, because she will not ask him to stay.  
  
But what does she want? Lily wants a lot of things. She wants to not live in a world where she is treated differently because of the family she was born into. She wants to not have to fight in a war about her right to live, to be seen as an equal. She wants to stop running. She wants love. A home. To not have a best friend who went to be a part of a group of people who are against everything she believes. She wants to leave Hogwarts and try to be an adult. And she wants James. With her. Every step of the way. But.  
“It is not about what I want. You started this fight. Go on and leave like I’m sure you want to and stop trying to make me say it, so that you can blame it on me when you leave.”  
James lets a sad laugh.  
  
“How classic Lily, thinking people want to leave you.”  
  
Lily is so very tired and all she wants to do is sit in her bed and vent about this nonsensical fight and how she can say very mean things without really mean it, but she did not start this fight and she is not to blame and if he wants to leave, he will do so, but not because she asks that of him and she wants to complain about that. She will not carry this blame – at least is what she tells herself, but the voices in her head are already saying it is her fault. It’s always her fault.  
  
It also haunts her that the person she imagines listening to her rants is the very person to whom she is fighting with.  
“I’m tired James. If you are going to leave me just do it.”  
  
“Wait what?” James seems confused and maybe a little bit angry.  
  
Lily says nothing, just sighs. She probably feels how her mother felt. James gets closer to her.  
  
“Lily, I’m not leaving you. I can leave for right now so that we can calm ourselves, but not leave you. I never want to leave you. Not unless you want me to.”  
  
Again with what she wants. Her bed is not in sight so she contents herself with just sitting -more like dropping- in the floor.  
  
“You should not feel obligated to stay.”  
  
James sits beside her, but very slowly like he is wanting to see if she will stop him.  
  
He rubs his eyes. He is tired too she realizes. Then he looks at her and she has tears in her eyes. But it is not like it was with her parents. He is not screaming. She is not silently listening as he screams. It’s not the same.  
  
“Lily, I love you. I just don’t always agree with you specially if you are insisting that you have to put yourself in harm’s way and that it is your fight and not mine and well, I believe we will never be in agreement about Snape.”  
  
“Well I don’t always agree with you either. Especially when you sound like a privileged brat.”  
“We need to talk about this.”  
  
“Yes.”  
  
James really is tired, she can see it now. She is good at reading people and she is very talented at reading the people she loves. And it is late after all.  
“Lily?”  
  
Lily just looks at him.  
“Can we just.. sleep? And talk about it in the morning?”  
  
“Why?”  
  
“Because… maybe we will think clearly in the morning? It seems we are not resolving this tonight.”  
At the word “resolve” she recoils. Resolve sound like an end.  
  
“If you want to break up with me, you should just do it now.”  
  
James looks hurt again which makes her feel bad and it is a very vicious cycle of bad feelings.  
“Lily, I just told you I’m not leaving you. We had a fight. People fight. Do you want to break up over this fight?”  
  
Again, they really ought to sleep. And James is very insistent, as always, with his questions and she cannot keep on making ways no not really answer them. So Lily resolves, with all the courage she still has, to try something different. I little bit of honesty.  
  
“No, but I don’t know. It was a bad fight.”  
  
“It was. Apparently I was a brat.”  
  
“You were.”  
  
“And you keep trying to accuse me of trying to leave in order to stop the discussion. Also you are mean when you fight.”  
  
“I’m horrible at this, at being a couple.”  
  
“Well, I would argue that you are a brilliant girlfriend, but we are in the middle of a fight.”  
  
“I do love you though.”  
  
“Even if I am a privileged brat?”  
  
She rolls her eyes and feels a small comfort in the familiarity of the act.  
  
“So we agree: we are in love, no one is leaving and this is an important matter we need to address.”  
  
“I believe so.”  
  
“Good.”  
  
“Brilliant.”  
  
Neither move.  
  
Lily starts breathing more unevenly.  
  
“The sad part is that I just want to lie down and rant about my day, but I want to do it with you.”  
  
James grabs her hand.  
  
“We will be alright, you and I. I promise and I keep my promises, and you know how I brag about keeping my promises. You normally make fun of me for the bragging.”  
  
Lily gives him a small smile, which is all the confirmation he seems to need.  
  
“And you can rant all you want. To me, about me. We are also friends, even though I am very attracted to you and mostly I’m a rubbishy friend to you because I keep trying to kiss you.”  
  
Lily loves him so for just being him and trying to change the mood with his awful flirting, but mostly Lily feels bad about herself. And she knows that she is not wrong in this fight: James will never fully understand what she is going through because he is not a muggleborn. He is being a privileged brat. Yes, he can fight. But they want to kill her. They are against her. He is just a supporter. He can quit it, but she cannot, because it is who she is that they are against off. And she will be in harm’s way whether she wants to or not.  
  
“I’m aloud to be angry about this and I’m not gonna explain calmly to you the reasons why. I’m not sorry about that.”  
  
“Well, I am sorry. I just get… well I guess nervous when I think about you in danger and I need to just accept that this will be our reality. And of course I know rationally you are capable of defending yourself. But this is my fight too, even if in a different way.”  
  
She nods.  
  
For now she will accept this. She just has to learn to accept that he is not looking for a way to leave her and that he feeling worried is not him believing she is inferior somehow. It is a process. So, she takes him on his offer.  
  
“So today I had another fight with Severus. Then I fought with my boyfriend, who I love, but I was rightfully angry at, but maybe I was a little mean to, and now I feel like a horrible person. And anxious. Like always.  
  
James kisses the top of her head.  
  
“You are not a horrible person, you just had a tough day.”  
  
“Thank you.”  
  
“And about the anxiety?”  
  
She rests her head on his shoulders.  
  
“Can I tell you about a fight my parents had?”  
  
“Of course love.”  
  
Lily talks. James hears all about it. Then they talk and James tells how his parent’s fights always ended with a dramatic move by his mother and that in the next day they would always apologize to each other and life would go on.  
  
After that, they just go to sleep.  
  
Before saying goodnight Lily says:  
  
“Tomorrow we will finish our fight and then we will move on with our lives.”  
  
James kisses her goodnight.  
  
The next day they do talk. James understands Lily’s view. Lily accepts, for the moment, that he is not leaving. She apologizes for screaming. He accepts the apologies and kisses her. Their friends don’t even realize they had a fight.  
  
They go on with their lives. Together. Even if sometimes that means fighting, but no one ever threatens to leave. Lily let’s go off the fight of her parent’s. They are nothing like them.


End file.
